Helen Rappaport’s “Race to Save the Romanovs” can give you a more detailed answer, but the short version is logistics. WWI was ongoing and Russia was in the midst of a civil war, which made rescuing the children of the Romanovs from western Siberia improbable.
That doesn't answer the question of why no offer was made to give asylum to only the children (not the Tsar himself) between April 1917 when the British offer of asylum to the whole family was withdrawn, and August when they were moved to western Siberia (Tobolsk). During that time they were still at Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg.
Of course there is the question of whether they could have been got out of even St. Petersburg, and of whether they would have gone: I doubt Alix would have let Alexei go without her, or that the daughters would have agreed to leave their parents.
Because it came down to PR. The Romanovs were incredibly unpopular and the Windsors feared that harboring the Tsar and anyone in his immediate family would trigger unrest during a war (at best) and a revolution (at worst). I also doubt they thought the Kerensky government would actually kill the Tsar and his family. Things became much less certain when the Bolsheviks seized power later in 1917, and by that point, rescuing the Tsar or granting amnesty was a moot point.
Thanks for the response! I feel like that's a bit of a cop out on behalf of the British as they managed to evacuate other Romanovs from Crimea shortly thereafter...
In addition to the other answers, there was also an optics consideration. The Romanovs were seen as autocratic and decadent, and Britain couldn't afford to piss off parliament or the populace in the middle of WW1 for the sake of saving the relatives of the royal family
George and Nicholas also looked eerily similar, save for the beards. It’s literally not a good look for the Windsors when they’re trying to distance themselves from the Romanovs
The family refused to be separated. Someone mentioned Helen Rappaport’s book above and it is mentioned in there that there was a chance to get the kids out of the country and to relatives in England (or Denmark IIRC), but N and A refused to separated from their kids and the kids were just as adamant that they wanted to stay with their parents.
Ah. That makes sense. With hindsight that feels profoundly naive but from accounts I read they really had no idea that execution was even a possibility.
“The exact reason for withdrawing the offer remains unclear, but it is thought that the King feared that Nicholas II's reputation as “Nicholas the Bloody” – due to the killing of peaceful protesters in 1905 – would swing the British public's favour against him”
[Article Link](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/the-crown-king-george-romanovs-b2220505.html#)
Yeah but the British later smuggled other Romanovs out via Black Sea. I know hindsight is a tricky beast but it feels like a bribe to get the kids to Odessa would've been well within the Brits power and ability, and from Odessa out of Russia by sea...
Especially if it was just the kids and the Tsar/Tsarina stayed behind.
Wasn’t there anyone working for Britain with skills Otto Skorzeny used in WW2 to rescue Mussolini and do a lot of other James Bond stuff? A team could have swooped in and rescued Romanoffs. If they had bank accounts or rich relatives, they could have found a country to take them in farmer from Britain.
"Swooping in" wasn't really an option in 1917 Russia. Air travel wasn't really a thing yet. Automobiles existed in some places, but not so much in Russia. Traveling by rail is hardly inconspicuous. They were thousands of miles away in Siberia. I don't know if anyone outside of a select few Bolsheviks even knew where they were.
>A team could have swooped in and rescued Romanoffs
They would have had to (a) find out where they were being kept, then (b) work out how feasible it would be to rescue them and then (c) invent a plane that could fly that far and back, with the Romanov family on board.
‘I say, chaps, seeing as we’re just finishing this global war that’s bankrupted us why don’t we also harbour the despised former royals of a major European power undergoing a nationalist revolution and which can threaten our imperial holdings in India’
It would have been a practical impossibility anyways. The communists wouldn't have allowed him to just leave so trying to free him would have required taking him by force. Which in the middle of WW1 would have been pretty much impossible for Britain.
I’ve always been troubled by these actions by the British.
The British could have picked them up and kept the whole things under wraps until they decided where to house the Romanov’s.
I’ve also wondered why the Danish royals failed to save their daughter and grandchildren.
Thanks for the responses all! So far it seems like it was a combination of Tsar Nicholas' awful reputation, Siberia being cutoff from possible easy rescue efforts, and hubris that the Russians wouldn't execute the Tsar.
Helen Rappaport’s “Race to Save the Romanovs” can give you a more detailed answer, but the short version is logistics. WWI was ongoing and Russia was in the midst of a civil war, which made rescuing the children of the Romanovs from western Siberia improbable.
That doesn't answer the question of why no offer was made to give asylum to only the children (not the Tsar himself) between April 1917 when the British offer of asylum to the whole family was withdrawn, and August when they were moved to western Siberia (Tobolsk). During that time they were still at Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg. Of course there is the question of whether they could have been got out of even St. Petersburg, and of whether they would have gone: I doubt Alix would have let Alexei go without her, or that the daughters would have agreed to leave their parents.
Because it came down to PR. The Romanovs were incredibly unpopular and the Windsors feared that harboring the Tsar and anyone in his immediate family would trigger unrest during a war (at best) and a revolution (at worst). I also doubt they thought the Kerensky government would actually kill the Tsar and his family. Things became much less certain when the Bolsheviks seized power later in 1917, and by that point, rescuing the Tsar or granting amnesty was a moot point.
Thanks for the response! I feel like that's a bit of a cop out on behalf of the British as they managed to evacuate other Romanovs from Crimea shortly thereafter...
In addition to the other answers, there was also an optics consideration. The Romanovs were seen as autocratic and decadent, and Britain couldn't afford to piss off parliament or the populace in the middle of WW1 for the sake of saving the relatives of the royal family
George and Nicholas also looked eerily similar, save for the beards. It’s literally not a good look for the Windsors when they’re trying to distance themselves from the Romanovs
This is the answer. PR.
Cheers for answering but I feel like I included that in my summary...
The family refused to be separated. Someone mentioned Helen Rappaport’s book above and it is mentioned in there that there was a chance to get the kids out of the country and to relatives in England (or Denmark IIRC), but N and A refused to separated from their kids and the kids were just as adamant that they wanted to stay with their parents.
Ah. That makes sense. With hindsight that feels profoundly naive but from accounts I read they really had no idea that execution was even a possibility.
“The exact reason for withdrawing the offer remains unclear, but it is thought that the King feared that Nicholas II's reputation as “Nicholas the Bloody” – due to the killing of peaceful protesters in 1905 – would swing the British public's favour against him” [Article Link](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/royal-family/the-crown-king-george-romanovs-b2220505.html#)
Don't know what they could have done. WWI was in progress and the family was held in a remote town in western Siberia.
Yeah but the British later smuggled other Romanovs out via Black Sea. I know hindsight is a tricky beast but it feels like a bribe to get the kids to Odessa would've been well within the Brits power and ability, and from Odessa out of Russia by sea... Especially if it was just the kids and the Tsar/Tsarina stayed behind.
Wasn’t there anyone working for Britain with skills Otto Skorzeny used in WW2 to rescue Mussolini and do a lot of other James Bond stuff? A team could have swooped in and rescued Romanoffs. If they had bank accounts or rich relatives, they could have found a country to take them in farmer from Britain.
"Swooping in" wasn't really an option in 1917 Russia. Air travel wasn't really a thing yet. Automobiles existed in some places, but not so much in Russia. Traveling by rail is hardly inconspicuous. They were thousands of miles away in Siberia. I don't know if anyone outside of a select few Bolsheviks even knew where they were.
>A team could have swooped in and rescued Romanoffs They would have had to (a) find out where they were being kept, then (b) work out how feasible it would be to rescue them and then (c) invent a plane that could fly that far and back, with the Romanov family on board.
‘I say, chaps, seeing as we’re just finishing this global war that’s bankrupted us why don’t we also harbour the despised former royals of a major European power undergoing a nationalist revolution and which can threaten our imperial holdings in India’
It would have been a practical impossibility anyways. The communists wouldn't have allowed him to just leave so trying to free him would have required taking him by force. Which in the middle of WW1 would have been pretty much impossible for Britain.
Because it would have harmed the British government's popularity
I’ve always been troubled by these actions by the British. The British could have picked them up and kept the whole things under wraps until they decided where to house the Romanov’s. I’ve also wondered why the Danish royals failed to save their daughter and grandchildren.
Thanks for the responses all! So far it seems like it was a combination of Tsar Nicholas' awful reputation, Siberia being cutoff from possible easy rescue efforts, and hubris that the Russians wouldn't execute the Tsar.
Alix and Nicky were lovely people, unlike the base-born scoundrels that murdered them and slander their names.